An epilating apparatus comprising an auxiliary member for cooling the skin is for example known from WO-A-00/76363. With the known epilating apparatus hairs are mechanically extracted from the skin. The hair removing member of the known epilating apparatus comprises a series of clamping discs which are rotatably supported in an epilation head. During rotation of the clamping discs the clamping discs are tiltable in pairs, from a hair catching position, in which hair catching spaces are present between the pairs of clamping discs, to a clamping position in which the pairs of clamping discs are clamped against each other near their edges. Hairs that penetrate the hair catching spaces when the clamping discs are in the hair catching positions are subsequently clamped between the clamping discs and extracted from the skin under the influence of the rotating movement of the clamping discs.
The auxiliary member of the known epilating apparatus is provided with a skin contact element and a holder which is in thermal contact therewith. In the holder there is provided a substance having a comparatively high cold capacity. The auxiliary member is detachably coupled to a main housing of the hair removing device. Before using the hair removing device, the substance should be cooled to a comparatively low temperature by placing the auxiliary member, for example, in a refrigerator for some time. If the auxiliary member is coupled to the main housing, the skin contact element is situated, viewed in a direction wherein the hair removing device is to be displaced over the skin, directly in front of the hair removing member. Consequently, during displacing the hair removing device over the skin, the skin is first cooled by the auxiliary member and immediately after that treated by the hair removing member.
By previously cooling the skin the pain that is usually felt when hairs are extracted is masked. This masking effect can be attributed to the fact that pain stimuli generated during extracting the hairs by pain receptors present around the hairs, are only partially passed on via the nervous system because said nervous system is partially blocked to pain stimuli by the cold stimuli already present in the nerves system and generated by the cold receptors present around the hairs. By virtue of this masking effect the extraction of hairs is experienced as considerably less painful.
A similar pain reduction can be reached by heating the skin before it is treated. Additionally or alternatively it is also possible to cool or heat the skin after treatment. This also reduces the pain and can, for example, be realized by mounting the auxiliary member behind the epilating area with reference to the moving direction.
However, there is a problem in that the known auxiliary member and therefore the whole known epilating apparatus is costly. The known attempts to heat the skin before treatment are also costly.
It is therefore the object of the invention to provide a cheaper possibility for cooling/heating the skin to be treated.